#WCW - Meghan Ross, PA-S

A big hello to Amber’s followers! My name is Meghan, and I
am a brand-new Physician Assistant Student at the University of Texas Medical
Branch. A little about my background, I am 22 years old, I just began PA school
on July 5th, I am a blogger myself and the page can be found at
MeghanInMedicine, I also have an Instagram blog page found at the same name
@meghaninmedicine. I am so happy to guest blog on her page because she’s a
wonderful PA student and great resource for Pre-PAs and PA students as well!

Today I’m here to talk about why I chose the Physician
Assistant field over other fields of medicine. I’ve always pictured myself in
the medical field, even as a child. I jumped from wanting to become a
Pediatrician, or a Radiologist, to wanting to become a critical care Registered
Nurse, or a Nurse Anesthetist. It wasn’t until my sophomore year in
undergraduate school that I had even heard of the Physician Assistant field. My
father actually introduced me to the field because he knew that I wanted to be
in the medical field and wanted to a hold a large amount of responsibility for
the patient, and he also knew what I wanted in my work life balance later in
life. As I researched more into the PA field, I fell more and more in love with
it because it simply felt like the perfect fit for me. I would able to
diagnose, prescribe, perform procedures, counsel, and more AND be able to have
lateral mobility to switch specialties as I please, work with a balanced
schedule with possible days off during the week or consistent hours during the
week, and one day be able to be present for my family and friends outside of
work. I so highly respect those physicians who have dedicated a large portion
of their lives to medicine, lifetime learning, 24-hour shifts, on call
weekends, residency, and more, but I just do not think I would be happy living
in that kind of lifestyle. The length and cost of training, collaboration with
supervising physicians, lateral mobility, and hours/work life balance are the
reasons I chose the Physician Assistant field.

Length/Cost of
training: Well, to take it back to the beginning, a Physician Assistant can
examine patients, prescribe medicine, order and interpret diagnostic tests,
perform surgery, consult patients, and perform other duties that Physicians
also perform, BUT Physician Assistant’s have 2 or 3 years of in class and
clinical training, whereas Physicians often have 7 or more years of training.
The cost of Physician Assistant school can vary greatly from 30,000 to 200,000
from matriculation to graduation depending on private or public, in-state or
out-of-state, price of living, etc. but the median cost is 76,000.
Comparatively, the median cost of Medical school for 4 years at a private
university is 280,000. These differences are enough to persuade someone who
doesn’t want to commit to nearly a decade of intense training and the anxiety
of jumping into a deep pool of debt without having a job to pay it off for
years due to training. Now obviously, the salary you come to make after you
training is finished balances out the debt at some point in both situations. I
came to terms with the fact that I can still provide health care, and great
health care at that as a Physician Assistant.

Teamwork: A
Physician Assistant is a mid-level health care professional who can provide
care to patients under the supervision of a Physician. Some people may hate the
thought of having someone “above” them, but I love the thought of having a
Physician to consult with, collaborate with for bigger decisions, and overall
just having a teammate if the going gets tough. That umbrella of safety is
unique and important to me and is different than most jobs in the health care
field can offer. My thought is having two sets of eyes on a patient is better
than one.

Lateral Mobility:
A Physician Assistant is not required to declare a specialty or go through
residency in a specialty they want to work in. As a PA, I can graduate and
apply for a job in Emergency Medicine and 10 years later, I can decide to apply
for a job in Surgery. Yes, there will be some turnover time in learning and
feeling completely comfortable in the new specialty but I love that I don’t
have to commit to just one specialty. Another
great thing about not declaring a specialty is that many Physician Assistant’s
can “moonlight” into different specialties as a second part time/per diem job,
and another source of income. There are also some ARC-PA accredited residencies
out there for Physician Assistants in just about every specialty that typically
last 12 months for those looking for more training and education in a specialty
they are sure they want to commit to.

Hours: A
Physician Assistant can have some very great hours given the right opportunity.
I’ve seen PAs working 1 week on, 1 week off, or 1 week on, 2 weeks off in the
hospital setting and 4 days per week in the private practice setting. Now, not
all jobs are this cushy, but there are a lot of great hours out there for PAs.
Many Physicians can find themselves working 60+ hours per week depending upon
their specialty. Depending upon your location, the staff situation, and specialty,
many times there is no “on call” responsibility for PAs unlike many Physicians
and typically no managerial responsibilities lie on the Physician Assistant in
a practice setting. Something that really deterred me from going into Private
Practice as a Physician was the huge business side of it that no one really
sees. It’s really important to me to have a future work/life balance and I
think the Physician Assistant profession will help me fulfill that.